Official Statistics

Annual qualifications market report: academic year 2017 to 2018

Overview of the qualifications market and a single reference point about participants in the market.

Applies to England

Documents

Annual Qualifications Market Report academic year 2017 to 2018

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Background Notes Annual Qualifications Market Report - academic year 2017 to 2018

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Data tables - Annual Qualifications Market Report - academic year 2017 to 2018

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Details

  • 11.5 million certificates were awarded in GCSE, AS, A level and vocational and other qualifications available for award in England over the academic year 2017 to 2018 (October 2017 to September 2018).

  • The organisations with the largest market shares in these qualifications were AQA (29%), Pearson (22%), City and Guilds (8%) and OCR (7%); the rest of the awarding organisations accounted for 35% market share.

  • The overall number of certificates fell by 8% compared to the previous year, continuing the trend seen over several years.

  • AS levels had the biggest percentage drop in the number of certificates (down by 59% compared to academic year 2016 to 2017).

  • 5.8 million certificates were awarded in vocational and other qualifications, a drop of 4% compared to the previous year.

  • 7% of the vocational and other qualifications certificates were in technical qualifications.

  • 2% of the vocational and other qualifications certificates were in Applied General Qualifications.

  • 20.8k qualifications were available in academic year 2017 to 2018, an 8% decrease on the previous year.

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Published 14 February 2019
Last updated 7 June 2019 + show all updates
  1. Updated data tables 5 and 6 to separate out some of the legacy and reformed qualifications. No change in the report.

  2. First published.